There has been a couple of threads over the past 10 years similar to your question, but they were over a specific blank more or less. I have had a couple of blanks that I could not get the correct finish - over a period of 6 months to a year, I would put it on the lathe and attempt to finish it, but something would happen such as white spots, or CA lifting on the end, or in one case old/bad CA that would not harden enough to finish properly, or something else. It was generally something that I had enough experience to overcome, but still it persisted. And the problems that would occasionally arise, all seemed to happen on that one blank. I think I have had this happen twice; I would put the blank aside and wait a few weeks and try again; and then again.
One blank was an ebony blank for a Polaris, (IIRC), the other was a segmented blank for a Sierra.